Special interview with Tony Blair

Transcript

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KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: As Julia Gillard contemplates the difficult circumstances in which she will seek to claim her place in Australian political history, British Labour's most successful Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is seeking to protect his place in history with the release of his long-awaited memoir.

His ten years as Prime Minister encompassed an ambitious reform agenda under the banner of New Labour, in partnership with the brilliant but prickly Gordon Brown who Blair had outmanoeuvred for the leadership.

Their partnership was at the heart of Labour's success, but as it soured so did the government's affair with the British people.

It was Tony Blair's decision to align himself closely to US president George W. Bush in the Iraq invasion after the 9/11 attacks and the fruitless hunt for weapons of mass destruction that weren't there, that wore down his popularity at home.

These days the former prime minister spends more time out of Britain than in it as a special envoy to the Middle East, and in fact was at the White House last week for the latest peace talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

I recorded this wide-ranging interview with Tony Blair by satellite to London last night.

Tony Blair, we might dive in at the deep end and start with the Middle East, since the Israeli Palestinian peace talks have just begun again in Washington and you were there last week.

The deadline for an outcome to these talks is a year from now. What are the odds that a workable deal can be struck?

TONY BLAIR, FORMER BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Well, it's a big challenge obviously, but it's possible. The atmospherics at the White House last week between President Abbas and Prime Minister Netanyahu were very good.

Perhaps as important as anything else, President Obama at our dinner really made it clear his own personal determination and commitment to reach an agreement.

And the truth is the issues are well canvassed and well known. So I think provided we can make the changes on the ground that help support the political process - and that's the thing I'm really working on - then I think we've got a chance.

Put it like that, we've got a chance and this may be our last chance to do it, so we should take it.

KERRY O'BRIEN: You must be incredibly conscious that the whole process could be derailed even before the end of the month when Israel's moratorium on settlement construction on the West Bank ends, that's September 26. The Palestinians have said if construction begins again, the talks will end.

Benjamin Netanyahu says if that happens, it'll be because the Palestinians aren't serious about the agreement. So that's the first challenge, isn't it?

TONY BLAIR: It's the first challenge and we're going to work hard to overcome it. Look, the important thing is that nothing is done that inhibits the creation of a Palestinian State and that presumes an outcome to the negotiation before we get the negotiation completed.

So that's what we're trying to work with, and what is important obviously is that we get into the detail of the negotiation. So let's hope we can get over this issue to do with the moratorium on settlements and get on with the process.

KERRY O'BRIEN: On Iraq, even out of office you continue to be pilloried at home for committing Britain to the Iraq war. I'm sure in many ways you're used to it by now, you must have a very thick skin on it. But largely on the basis of faulty or overcooked intelligence, as it was perceived to be by many, that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction - and the pelting at your book signing in Dublin last Saturday can't have been pleasant.

But you still say today you don't regret going in. If the justification is so clear and strong, why has it damaged you so much?

TONY BLAIR: Because you know, when you go to war it's a massively controversial thing.

Incidentally, one thing I should just make clear. In Dublin, there were protesters, some stop the war people, some actually dissident Republicans opposed to the peace deal. They were far outnumbered by the people who actually turned up to get the book signed and were very supportive and decent.

So one's got to be careful actually of putting too much emphasis on the people who throw things. They're not in my experience representative of the whole population.

But yeah, it's a hugely controversial decision and we live with this controversy in a sense still, because you've got the very active issue of Iran coming up. What do you do about Iran and its potential for nuclear weapons capability?

And as I try and explain in the book, my view is that post September the 11th, the whole calculus of risk changed and that we could not afford to take risks with unstable regimes that might develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capability.

The reason we went after Saddam was that he'd used and weapons, against his own people and in the Iran Iraq war where there were a million casualties. So it's a debate that will carry on and there will continue to be people who feel very strongly about it.

My actual sense of the public to be honest is that they understand it was a complex and difficult decision. And I think there's a lot more understanding in the public than there is obviously with the people who will throw stuff.

KERRY O'BRIEN: I'll come back to Iran in a minute. But a very highly credentialed intelligence analyst and senior weapons inspector named Rod Barton who had 13 years of experience hunting weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - he was also a special adviser to the CIA's Iraq Survey Group that you've mentioned yourself a number of times, the group that found no weapons.

Now Rod Barton, very highly respected in his field, has said that the survey group process was dishonest and attempted to cover up the truth that there were no weapons. Doesn't that suggest that the Bush Administration at least was still covering its tracks after the war was over on that issue, still trying to justify what many have come to see as a massive foreign policy blunder?

TONY BLAIR: As you will know, I mean, he is very strongly disagreed with by other people who headed up the Iraq Survey Group and what they found actually, I think, does tally with the evidence of the interviews that they carried out with the people in Saddam's regime - interviews they were able to carry out after the war. And indeed interviews with Saddam himself.

And the picture they paint which was actually accepted by the Butler committee and review here in the UK is that Saddam decided he needed to get rid of sanctions. He effectively put the weapons program into abeyance but had the intention of restarting nuclear and chemical weapons capability, retained know how, retained scientists to do so once sanctions were lifted.

So you know, look - this is somebody who used chemic- I mean, one of the things sometimes people almost rewrite history to make Saddam into a sort of kindly, avuncular figure who was a benign influence in the region.

I mean, he was a destabilising influence in the region, devastating for his own country. He had actually used chemical weapons against his own people so the intelligence that we were receiving at the time wasn't counter-intuitive. It was on the contrary absolutely in line with his previous behaviour.

KERRY O'BRIEN: I don't know too many people who are trying to paint Saddam Hussein as a benign figure and certainly Rod Barton wasn't one of them, but...

TONY BLAIR: No, no I know and I don't disrespect him incidentally at all, let me make that absolutely clear. But I don't actually agree with him about the Iraq Survey Group and I think their findings were pretty clear. They were clear to our disfavour in a sense on the issue of the actual weapons, but they were also very clear about the renewed intentions of Saddam's regime. And they gave very plausible explanations for that.

TONY BLAIR: But he was there on the inside of that and in fact he was writing some of those reports and was deeply disturbed about the process that took place. And he also accused you of deliberately exploiting what he calls a "document of deceit" from the chairman of your Joint Intelligence Committee to convince the British Parliament to go to war in Iraq.

He says you must have known that document was a lie because you would have seen the classified versions of your Joint Intelligence Committee's findings, which he says were much more circumspect about evidence of weapons in Iraq.

TONY BLAIR: Well, that's just not true and if that's what he's saying, I'm afraid that... just really doesn't tally with the facts at all. You can go and see on the website what intelligence I received - the raw intelligence or the Joint Intelligence Committee reports, rather, that I received. You can go and study them. Study them and tell me that you would conclude...

KERRY O'BRIEN: This was the classified part?

TONY BLAIR: I don't know exactly what he's referring to, but if he's referring to the Joint Intelligence Committee reports, which is what the Prime Minister of the UK receives, right? We have an intelligence committee, they assess the raw intelligence, they draw up a report, they give it to the Prime Minister. You can go and read it.

What I say to people is, if you're hunting for a conspiracy on this, you're hunting the wrong thing. It wasn't a conspiracy.

Now you can say it was the wrong decision. That's a different matter, but there was no conspiracy. There was a very, very genuine decision that I happen still to think is right because I think if you hadn't dealt with Saddam then, you'd have been back dealing with him at a later time, possibly more powerful.

KERRY O'BRIEN: You...

TONY BLAIR: And I think these issues are really... You see this is where, I think, people who talk in that language that you've just described, it's to devalue the political decision that politicians are faced with at the moment. Because you've got exactly the same issue in respect of Iran now.

What do you do? Do you take the risk, do you say "Let's manage this situation. We know this is a bad regime, we know that they've got bad intentions but let's manage it, let's try and calm it down, park it, hope that over time it will evolve into something more benign". Or did you say "No, I'm sorry, we're going to have to take this issue on, because the risk of this regime handling this type of material is too great a risk to run".

It's a very, very difficult decision.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Let's look at that because you said in an interview on BBC television last week that it's wholly unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons capability and they should be confronted militarily if necessary.

You said, and I'll quote, "I think there is no alternative to that" - that is military intervention - "if they continue to develop nuclear weapons and they need to get that message loud and clear".

Now what is the tipping point at which you believe military action should be taken against Iran?

TONY BLAIR: Well, first of all I hope the diplomatic solution works and sanctions work. Secondly, I hope... The tipping point is a big matter of debate and you've got to make a judgment as to when they really do acquire that capability. But the real issue is this, are you prepared to let them have that capability?

Supposing they are continuing to develop it, do you at a certain point say "Well, look, the risk of taking action is just too great"? Or do you say "the risk of them acquiring that weapon is just too great"?

That's the decision, it's very difficult.

KERRY O'BRIEN: So...

TONY BLAIR: Personally, spending a lot of time out in that region, I wouldn't let them get nuclear weapons capability. I think that's not a regime you want to see with a nuclear weapon.

KERRY O'BRIEN: I guess people can understand the potential risks of Iran having nuclear weapons. On the other hand, what risks do you identify of taking military action against Iran?

TONY BLAIR: Absolutely Kerry. It's a very, very good point and that's why I say to you, we don't do anyone any favours today by framing these foreign policy arguments in the way of who's the liar and who's the person telling the truth. It's more complicated than that. It's, what is the calculus of risk?

Now I happen to believe that if Iran gets a nuclear weapon and this is a regime I see attempting to destabilise things right round the Middle East at the moment. It's a regime...

Look, they're about to try and stone to death a woman for supposedly committing adultery. It's not a regime that shares our values. It's not a regime that has in my view, any sense as we do of proper systems of rule and law and so on.

Do you want to take the risk of such a regime acquiring a nuclear weapon? My view is no. I don't say that someone who takes a different view is an idiot or a pacifist.

Of course if you end up having to take action against Iran, the consequences are also frightening to contemplate. But that's why it's hard today and that's why we're best if we have a debate based on a serious assessment of risk and a respect for opposing views rather than this "Who's the liar and who's the honest person?" Because that- it's really not what it's about.

TONY BLAIR: With the time that's left, let's look at the domestic end of your memoir and starting particularly, your relationship with Gordon Brown, which had some great highs and some great lows. What was it fundamentally that caused the relationship to go wrong? Was it simply rivalry or was it more than that?

TONY BLAIR: It was a disagreement about policy, in the end. You know- and I retain and have a huge respect for Gordon, for his ability, for what he did, for what he did in the financial crisis incidentally, in stabilising the banks. He played an enormous and important part in that.

But in the end we had a disagreement about change and reform. My view is that in countries like ours, you know, the issue is how fast can we change? Because the world... I see a paradigm shift going on and power moving eastwards.

I think for countries like Britain, they've really got to wake up to how fast the world is changing and we have, therefore, to reform our public services, our welfare. We have to have even more competitive economies in areas like higher education we've got to become world leaders.

So I was for making the reform program go even faster. I think he felt that that reform program went too far in the direction of marketisation and change and disagreed. So there you are, it's a disagreement.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But also...

TONY BLAIR: That's what happens in politics.

KERRY O'BRIEN: In part two of his biography called Blair Unbound Anthony Seldon wrote that you were worried about Gordon's character and personality, the dark side of his nature, his paranoia and his inability to collaborate.

So that must have been an aspect of it. You were two quite different personalities and a lot of people have acknowledged that side of his.

TONY BLAIR: It's absurd to have a conversation without sort of being open about the fact that Gordon is, as I say in the book, is a difficult guy in many ways. But he's also an immensely talented person in many ways. And one of the things I actually think about politics is leaders come in all shapes and sizes. They don't have to be... I'm probably in the more touchy feely type politician, but they don't have to come like that. In the end, it's the quality of the leadership and the policy that matters. And I think you can see that in anyone's politics actually.

So no, he was not the same type of political personality as me, but that's not the reason in the end I think we lost the election. I think we lost because we didn't drive forward on the new Labor agenda. We retreated somewhat.

KERRY O'BRIEN: One of the surprises you revealed in your memoir was your fear of the Prime Minister's Question Time, that even at the height of your political dominance you feared "being made to look a fool, or simply being outwitted". That suggests a surprising insecurity.

TONY BLAIR: I think most people, you know, have a certain doubt and insecurity in them and your Prime Minister's questions I think is even rougher than mine from what I see.

KERRY O'BRIEN: It is, it's every day.

TONY BLAIR: And I don't know what any of your leaders think now about Prime Minister's questions, but I found it the most terrifying thing I ever did. And even today at three minutes to 12 - because we used to have it at midday every Wednesday - and at three minutes to 12 where ever I am in the world a chill runs down the back of my neck when I think of that ordeal.

KERRY O'BRIEN: It sounds like you had some truly miserable moments leaving the chamber. How good were you at hiding the misery?

TONY BLAIR: Well you have to put on a good face. I mean, that's the whole point. But there's nothing like... You know sometimes, I don't know whether this comes across in your TV or accounts of it, but you're very close to your opposite numbers and they're all basically shouting and bawling at you. I mean abuse is coming at you from every angle and you've got to kind of stand up and talk to the country as it were.

The one thing I used to find is that it was actually almost a physical as well as a mental exertion. I know you're not- it's not the same as being in the gym or something but actually you would find it physically draining. I used to, I say in the book because I tried as I said to write this book from a human perspective rather than a usually pretty boring political memoir. And one of the things I used to do to keep my energy levels up is I would devour a banana before I got into the chamber, a bit like a sportsman about to enter an arena.

KERRY O'BRIEN: You wrote quite extensively on the drama and tension around the death of Diana and how you became increasingly concerned at the Queen's public remoteness at the tragedy until you expressed your concern to Prince Charles who passed it on. Can you explain briefly your concern and the Queen's response?

TONY BLAIR: Well, I totally understood why it's so difficult for the Queen because I mean these were her grandchildren who had lost their mother and her first concern was for the family and absolutely rightly.

But as the days went on it was obvious that it was important also that she came out and she spoke and in the end, of course, she did and did it magnificently. And one of the things- I didn't know the Queen nearly so well in 1997, obviously, as I got to know her later but she is an immensely shrewd person. And once she understood what she needed to do, she went out and she did it.

KERRY O'BRIEN: You spoke with her after Diana's funeral. You say you were both nervous and that you were perhaps less sensitive than you should have been. What can you say about that moment in terms of what you were endeavouring to impart to her?

TONY BLAIR: I didn't quite... I was trying to understand actually what was going on in the country at the time, which was difficult, and my concern as the Prime Minister was in the sense, to... because this was a traumatic moment for the country and also a traumatic moment for its relationship with the monarchy.

So I was trying at one and the same time obviously to try and manage what was a very difficult situation. But also to try and do so in a way that brought the people and the monarchy back together, because in Britain basically people do respect the Queen and respect the institution of the monarchy. So it was difficult and I was very much less experienced then. I had only been in power two or three months.

KERRY O'BRIEN: You suggest that she got a little bit haughty at one point, a little bit queenly?

TONY BLAIR: Well, no. She was actually always immensely gracious and certainly never haughty, but -but... you know, she's the Queen.

KERRY O'BRIEN: (Laughs) Finally, would you nominate one big policy difference you made that you believe will endure beyond your lifetime?

TONY BLAIR: I think there are lots, really. There are lots, you know, from the minimum wage through to the reform programs in education and health and so on.

The one I hope is still there in time to come is actually the peace process in Northern Ireland. I mean that was... It took a lot to put it together. It really has changed lives and I hope in years to come that is there and is a constant.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Tony Blair, thanks very much for talking with us.

TONY BLAIR: Thank you, Kerry. Thanks.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Incidentally, Tony Blair received an advance of £4.6 million for his memoir which he's donating to war veterans through the Royal British Legion and the full version of that interview will be on the web.